


He's a Hero???

by hebravelyranaway



Series: Of books, mischief and murder [3]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, BAMF Loki, Community: norsekink, Crack, Crack and Angst, Duncan discovers social media and uses it for heroism, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Loki earns his title as God of Mischief, Magic, Magic-Users, Mood Whiplash, absurdity, cursed yet again!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4928911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hebravelyranaway/pseuds/hebravelyranaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Duncan tries to 'rescue' Methos with the help of social media, and Loki gets some fans.  A sequel to "Wherein Loki saves his favorite coffee shop and accidently saves some of those puny mortals, too" and "Bondage".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**_ He's _ ** ** a _Hero???_ **

Methos glared balefully down at the cackling figure on his phone. Unfortunately, he had to actually witness the tears of laughter that were streaming down Mac's face, as he was using facetime because he had thought it might be more reassuring for the other man to see that he was alive. Apparently, he needn't have worried.

"Let me get this straight. _You_ ," another cackle, "got kidnapped by a supervillain after doing something heroic? After all the times you've lectured me about how foolish I was to risk my life for other people—"

"It's not _that_ funny, Highlander," he said through gritted teeth.

"It really is."

"Well, you didn't have to laugh for quite so long about it. I doubt _anything_ could be that funny," he grouched.

"You've never been on the other side of your lectures. Don't get involved, Macleod. Walk away. Chivalry is an outdated concept, Macleod. Don't risk—"

"Alright, already! You've made your point. The shoe is on the other foot, and there's nothing funnier in the entire world." He snorted. "I didn't even _do_ it to be heroic, whatever that means."

"Then why did you do it?"

"He reminds me of someone, alright?"

That stopped Macleod short, brow furrowing in consternation.

"Who?"

"…I'd prefer not to get into that in the presence of godly eavesdropping, if it's all the same to you."

A muffled 'damn' came from the other side of the bedroom door, and it swung open to reveal a completely unashamed looking Loki.

"I _told_ you I wouldn't listen in. You could have at least done me the courtesy of believing me."

"You're the god of lies!"

"Mere slander," he said smoothly. His eyes flickered curiously to the image on Methos' phone. "But I simply _had_ to listen in when I realized that it was taking an unusually long time for you to call for help. Then I heard the laughter. You have a very unsympathetic friend, don't you?"

Methos sent Macleod another glare.

" _Evidently_."

"I am _not_ unsympathetic. Entirely," he corrected. "But this is just so ridiculous, I could barely believe—and, well, it came out as laughter," he said, looking a little embarrassed.

"You could barely believe what?"

Macleod leveled Methos with the most exasperated look he had ever seen from him.

"That he risked his life by attracting the attention of someone who evidently has the ability to kill him with his mind!"

Loki blinked in surprise.

"Oh. I'm not going to kill him," he corrected casually, not looking offended by the assumption at all, as if he thought it was a perfectly natural for people to believe that he would kill anyone who was in his general vicinity for more than two seconds. Well, he supposed if you were the type of person to embrace the title of 'supervillain' with absolutely no irony…"He's been very helpful. He is teaching me the science of deduction, so that I may more easily take over the world."

"…You're helping him take over the world?!"

He sent Macleod a scathing look.

"Yes, Macleod, I'm helping him take over the world, because alien invasions are so my thing."

Mac had the grace to look a little embarrassed. Loki eyed to two of them with amusement.

"He's teaching me what he calls 'logical theory', not giving me lessons in battle tactics or assisting me in world-domination, but how interesting that you assume he could."

"…I never said that he could."

"Oh?" The god of lies smiled pleasantly.

"Adam's so smart, he could probably teach anybody anything," Mac said a little too defensively. Methos rolled his eyes. The Highlander was usually a better liar than that when he actually chose to lie about something, being a trained actor, and all, but yeah, there was really no good way to explain why you would think that your friend, the perfectly harmless graduate student, would make a good general for someone's evil army.

Loki made a skeptical sound— _rightly so_ , Methos thought with exasperation—and promptly snatched Methos' phone out of his hand without warning.

"Hey!"

"By the Norns, what is it with heroes and their ridiculously perfect hair?"

"Excuse me?"

"You could be a clone of my brother."

"We have completely different coloring!"

A certain gleam came into Loki's eyes, and Methos saw the moment he decided to mess with him.

"Did you remember to write down my address before you started laughing at his misfortune, or do you need him to repeat it for you again?" he said with mock concern, his expression making it clear that he was insulting Macleod's intelligence. "It would be deeply disappointing if the Avengers never made it here to save the day. Where would your friend be then?"

Macleod eyed him suspiciously.

"Is getting me to tell the Avengers where he is all part of your plan?"

Loki grinned slowly.

"I suppose you'll just have to find out, won't you?"

When Mac hung up, he looked slightly more paranoid than usual, for some reason.

Methos sighed.

"Letting the Avengers know where you live isn't really part of any master plan, is it?"

"Not even a little bit. I just kind of want to see what he'll do. He _is_ the hero type, isn't he?"

"How could you tell?" Methos asked rhetorically, cradling his head in his hands. Gods, he had thought that Macleod-Headaches were bad, and then he had assumed that Loki-Headaches were as bad as they got, but that was before he had had the unfortunate experience of getting a Macleod-and-Loki-Headache.

Loki grinned, looking stupidly cheerful at that sign of his distress.

"So whatever he does, it's bound to be entertaining."

 

When Methos had dreamed up worst-case scenarios of what could happen to his rescue mission now that Macleod thought it could lead to all of the Avengers' deaths, he had never imagined anything like this. In his head, Caricature!Macleod road to his rescue without telling the Avengers where he was, charging at Loki's home with his sword drawn and a Scottish war cry on his lips, only to bounce off Loki's invincible shield-thingy like Jell-o.

What actually happened was both much better, and much worse. Because Mac was not, in fact, a caricature, and was usually much smarter than that no matter how much he enjoyed telling the Highlander otherwise, he had, despite any paranoia that Loki had instilled in him, done exactly as Methos had asked and told the Avengers and real SHIELD where Loki's hideout was and that he was holding his friend hostage. He had also, however, told the media, too. All of it. He'd given interviews on five separate television channels asking people to write everyone from their congressmen to the directors of SHIELD and the FBI to pressure them to negotiate with Loki for his release. He'd created a facebook group dedicated to saving the Hero of New York, as they were now calling him. He had even gone on Twitter and YouTube to advocate for his release. Methos hadn't even known that Mac knew what Twitter was, let alone how to use it.

In short, Methos' face was everywhere. He would be recognized all over the world as that guy who had gotten kidnapped by Loki after heroically convincing the supervillain, who normally had quite a high body count, to save the whole of New York. Mac told the people interviewing him that he simply wanted the public to know what Adam Matthews (the name of his current alias) had sacrificed for them so that law enforcement wasn't tempted to give up on him if initial rescue attempts failed, but it made Methos want to cry in despair, nonetheless.

He and Loki started getting all sorts of visitors now Loki's address had become worldwide knowledge. First, there were the official kind. Probably-really-SHIELD cordoned the whole block off and evacuated all Loki's neighbors in order to engage in hostage negotiations.

"Excellent," Loki said. "I now have the entire complex to myself. Would you like your own apartment?"

"You mean, would I like to take over someone else's home after you scared them off?"

"After _SHIELD_ scared them off," Loki corrected.

Methos, who knew from numerous escape attempts that being out of Loki's sight wouldn't prevent his magic from keeping tabs on him or preventing his escape, decided to decline. He already had a luxurious guest room, anyway.

"…No thanks, it would still feel creepy."

"Your loss."

After the attempted negotiations, which Loki happily ignored ("I cannot let you go until we finish our lessons," he'd insisted.), they'd brought out the battering ram. And really? A battering ram? Versus an energy shield and magic? What in hell?

"Is that going to do anything?"

Loki's eyes took on a gleam that Methos had begun to both dread and, for some no doubt psychologically unhealthy reason, anticipate.

"Not to my shields."

It turned out that anyone who approached Loki's home with the intent of destroying his shields promptly forgot what they were doing, and decided, with the utmost conviction, that they would like nothing more than to paint each others' nails. This extended to the people operating the controls of a mechanical battering ram. After losing three teams of SHIELD agents to impromptu mani-pedis, they had finally gotten the common sense to bring someone in to test the damn thing with scientific instruments.

The team of SHIELD scientists that went in to replace Tony Stark (who had refused point-blank to approach on the grounds that he was much too pretty to be turned into a frog) at first seemed to have better luck. They got closer to Loki's building, for one thing, but as soon as they tried to measure the energy output of his defenses in any way, they were turned temporarily into frogs. Tony Stark, for his part, was turned into an ass. He brayed angrily at Loki when he was the only one not to be turned back to his natural form after about five minutes.

"Turn him back," Methos said sternly.

"What? It's not like there's much of a difference."

Methos gave him a look. Loki sighed.

"Fine," he said, and wiggled his fingers in a way that looked to Methos like the Jedi Mind Trick. A green glow suffused Stark, and, like the Beast from _Beauty and the Beast_ , he was returned to his original form.

He huffed and glared up at Loki.

"This isn't over, Reindeer Games!"

"I can still return you to your natural state, Stark!"

After that, SHIELD seemed to decide that standing around and pretending that they were preventing Loki from escaping was really all they could do until they could get into contact with Asgard, and seeing as throughout this whole crisis, Thor had been mysteriously nowhere to be found even though there had been no recorded Bifrost activity lately, it looked like that would take awhile.

It wasn't until everyone but the guards patrolling the crime scene left that the other visitors showed themselves.

 

"There's a crowd of people standing outside the crime scene tape, arguing with the guards," Loki said, peering at them through his curtains like the nosy neighbor he apparently was.

Methos looked up from where he was constructing his latest lesson plan. He was sticking mostly to modern logical theory, because while teaching Loki the classics would have been part of a well-rounded education in philosophy, telling him that one of Earth's greatest thinkers had advocated the idea that philosopher kings should rule over their less advanced subjects for their own good probably wouldn't help Loki's mental condition.

"Probably just gawkers."

"No, I don't think so. They're all either holding bouquets of flowers or potted plants. Oh, and look! Some of the mortals have made a banner in my honor."

That didn't register at first.

"…Wait, what?"

He set aside his work and joined Loki at the window. Sure enough, several women were holding up a huge green and black banner that said, "THANK YOU, LOKI!" It was covered in gold glitter, and there were balloons tied to the ends of it, like it was part of some kid's birthday party.

"Oh, they're constructing what looks to be an altar right outside the crime scene tape. The flowers and banner must be offerings. But why would they give me such things? Not that it isn't nice, and all, but your people usually just give me dead animals if they want to curry my favor."

What in hell?

"You mean, animal sacrifices? People in the _modern_ world have been giving you _animal sacrifices?"_ He, for one, had been happy to leave all the sacrificing behind him. Besides, who in their right minds would worship someone who had been systematically destroying New York for the past few years? …And, he supposed he had just answered his own question. Loki's usual worshippers probably _weren't_ in their right minds. The people leaving him his 'offerings' now seemed pretty normal, though, he decided, looking down at the unusual scene. If he had to describe Loki's new worshippers in only one way, he would have probably gone with 'soccer moms'.

The god shrugged.

"Well, I don't understand the point of it either," he said a bit defensively, strangely looking a little worried about his worshippers. "Are they trying to feed me? If so, they've found a poor way of going about it. One time I came to a temple dedicated to my name to find a dead cow that had been sitting there for weeks! Eating that would have been very unhygienic."

Methos' brain broke for a moment. He had never thought to consider what the gods he had worshipped, had they been real, would have thought of his gifts. Back when he had worshipped gods at all, he had just taken it as wrote that you should give them tribute in the way your religion said you should. Wincing, he sent a mental apology to Apollo, just in case.

"I don't know, but I do know that giving people flowers is something _normal_ people in the modern world do when they want to say thank you."

Loki snorted cynically.

"Yes, sure they're normal. I keep trying to kill them, I used _black magic_ to save them, and now they want to _thank_ me?"

"Well, you just saved an entire city," he said carefully. "Sure, there are some people who will never forgive you for killing so many people before, but you saved millions of people, their children, their husbands and wives and parents. They're going to be grateful, even if they can't forgive you. Some of them will even be grateful enough to show it, to let the past stay in the past," he said, gesturing at the crowd of everyday people who were milling nervously in front of the altar, waiting to leave their offerings. They were mostly flowers, but there were also the occasional homemade baked goods. Loki eyed those with the most interest, then paled for some reason when he saw the—mostly—grandmothers and mothers giving him such gifts. Methos wondered why.

"I will only hurt them again," he sneered. "It is in my nature. Those _fools_ are just putting themselves in danger by hoping any differently."

Methos winced. Those were not the words of someone who liked himself, even if that was probably nothing more than the truth, right now. But that was a self-fulfilling prophecy if he ever heard one, and if there was even the _slightest_ chance that he could convince Loki otherwise…

"You know, I think you'll find that very few things are in people's nature if they don't want it to be," he said mildly.

Loki pursed his lips in disagreement, shooting him a look that was, at best, deeply skeptical, but hesitantly waved an open palm in the direction of the worshippers outside. All of the baked goods, along with some of the more beautiful flowers and the banner, reappeared in the living room, the cut flowers miraculously arranging themselves in elegant crystal vases that hadn't been there a moment before. Loki clutched one of the warm loaves of homemade bread to his chest, looking strangely vulnerable, and went to put it in his kitchen.

It was no shock to Methos that, when an army of monster squid was summoned by what, according to Loki, was the same powerful but hopelessly impractical sorcerer, they went the same way as the giant cockroaches.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein more kids find Loki, Director Fury is so done with this shit, and not everyone reacts well to Loki's change of heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm back! Sorry for the delay. Thanks for waiting to anyone who's still following this story : ). Also, thank you to one of the reviewers from the last chapter, 'Rabble', for the term 'Lokians'. That is now what everyone in this 'verse is going to call Loki's new worshippers, so credit goes to you for that.
> 
> Disclaimer: Methos, Loki and Fury do not belong to me, but to Panzer and Davis, and Disney and Marvel respectively. No copyright infringement is intended, and I am not making any money off of this story. Also, while Fury talks about several legal issues in the chapter, I'm not a lawyer, so I have no idea how accurate the things he says are. I tried, though. Research! But it's not an expert legal opinion.

Chapter two

"What are you watching?" Methos asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily as he walked into the living room where Loki was watching television. It was late in the morning the day after Loki had saved everyone from the giant squid, but he had just gotten up, because it's not like he had to get up for work early, anymore, and he might as well benefit from this whole getting kidnapped by a god situation _somehow_. 

"A special news report. The Director of SHIELD evidently had to resort to giving an interview with one of those horrible news anchors to remind the public that I am still dangerous," he said with amusement. 

When Methos glanced at the television, he blinked in surprise, needing a moment to comprehend that the former—or not so former, it seemed—Director of SHIELD, who everyone had thought dead for going on two years now, was alive and giving an interview on national television as if nothing had happened. Fury, who had a pinched expression on his face that was equal parts pissed-off and exasperated, seemed to be in the middle of giving the news-watching public what amounted to a supervillain public service announcement. 

"…But I thought he was dead," Methos said.

Loki waved a hand in dismissal.

"Of course he isn't, do keep up," he snapped in almost exact imitation of the BBC character he admired so much. Methos, despite the fact that Loki had expressed admiration for Sherlock Holmes earlier, had still been expecting his favorite character on the show to be Moriarty when Loki insisted they binge-watch _Sherlock_ last night.  However, despite the fact that being a god of chaos and lies evidently meant that you only liked working with people who would inevitably betray you, and Loki thought it would be fun to have an ally like Moriarty, he liked the protagonist of the series more.  Evidently, becoming a hero on Asgard for wits alone was unheard of. Methos suspected that the fact that someone like Sherlock was actually popular with the people of Earth played no small part in Loki's admiration for the character. "Now hush. I'm trying to hear what the Man of Fury has to say about me," he continued.

"Look, I get that you're grateful to him for saving you instead of trying to kill you for once," the Director said with his typical grim mien, "but if I have to clean one of you stupid kids off the street because one of you tried to hug him again—"

Methos stared at Loki incredulously.

"Somebody tried to _hug_ you?"

"They did more than try," the god admitted reluctantly, trying to hide his embarrassment. "They _succeeded_.  I was just minding my own business, walking around downtown during the morning rush hour without an illusion to disguise my presence, because it has been so long since I caused mass panic amongst the mortals—" _It has been two weeks at the most_ , Methos thought incredulously, "and I was getting nostalgic.  Unfortunately, I encountered a group of children heading out on a class trip, and they just _converged_ on me."

"Parents, I recognize that 'Don't hug Loki if you see him' is safety advice you never thought you would have had to tell your kids, but given recent events, it might be a necessity, now. Children won't necessarily understand that someone might still be dangerous if they're acting like they're reformed. If you don't explain this to them, and he smites one of them for touching his godly person without permission, or something, don't come crying to me."

Loki frowned, suddenly looking unsure.

"Perhaps I should have smote them? He has a point.  They did not follow the proper etiquette when approaching royalty.  But in truth, I was just so surprised to be accosted in such a manner that I didn't even think of it.  Besides, it is really their parents' fault for not instructing them on proper etiquette, so if anything, it is they that should be punished."

"But…you're not actually going to smite these kids or their parents, are you? The kids seem to like you," he said, actually starting to grow concerned by how serious the god sounded.

"They do like me, don't they?" he said, a small, confused smile forming on his face. "No, I am not going to hurt any one of them.  It would be unseemly to punish them in such a way after they gave me such valued offerings. One little girl even gave me the cookies her mother packed in her lunch box.  I was told that was quite an honor.  Still, the children need to be taught that it is not proper to cling to the future ruler of their realm like a favorite stuffed toy, no matter how grateful they are that I saved them from the monsters."  He grimaced slightly and stared at his own hand with a strange look in his eyes, rubbing his wrist as if someone had grasped it too hard and he was trying to get the feeling back into it, even though no one had touched him.  Methos was just about to ask him what the hell he was doing when Loki held up his hand for silence again, his attention drawn back to the television, where Fury was answering a question Methos had not heard.

"— government is _not_ going to charge Loki's new worshippers with treason at this time, as far as I know," he said dryly.  "I think they're stupid, and their faith in him is going to get them killed, but according to my contacts at the Justice Department, they haven't committed a crime yet.  As far as I understand it, they would actually have to declare their allegiance to Loki and then assist him in his war against the U.S. government to be charged with treason, and people we interviewed seem to just want to thank him for saving them instead of trying to kill them for once.  Are they naïve for thinking this will change anything?  Yes.  This guy has been doing his best to destroy New York and take over the world for years now, and he's not going to change just because somebody baked him cookies.  But what they're doing is not illegal.  You can be certain that SHIELD will keep monitoring the situation to make sure that none of these people are trying to help Loki in any way, though."

"Director, is it true that some of these so-called Lokians have gotten death threats?"

"Yes, it is, and we'll be monitoring that situation, as well." Next to him, Loki made an indignant sound and crossed his arms over his chest, muttering something about protective spells. "Just to be clear," Fury continued, "sending death threats _is_ illegal, so I would advise the idiots sending them to stop.  Let the government handle this. We will take care of it if any of these people prove to be dangerous.  So far, they seem harmless, just desperate to get the god to reform so they have one less supervillain trying to kill them.  They also have nothing to do with the group that kept giving him animal sacrifices and trying to convince him to start Ragnorok, awhile back."

"You may have forgotten to mention that the animal sacrifice people also want to start the apocalypse," Methos said dryly.

Loki looked at him, eyes wide.    

"I did not know. I almost never encounter them, I just know that they keep leaving me dead things.  Honestly, it is like having an admirer that you find distasteful, but who just won't leave you alone.  The less I knew about them, the better."

Methos grimaced.  If someone kept giving him presents like that, he would want to stay as far away from them as possible, too.

"I can understand that."

In the background, Fury was saying something about death threats against Loki increasing, too, evidently because people who had lost loved ones to him were angry that other people were starting to see him in a more positive light. Loki scowled unhappily at the television and turned it off.

"I bet your old worshippers make you appreciate the soccer moms a lot more, don't they?" Methos said in an attempt to cheer him up. Loki brightened a little.

"I have no idea what a soccer mom is, but if you mean those lovely people with a talent for baking, then yes, though I do still think they might be crazy in an entirely different way. Why else would they spend all of their time making those delicious tiny cakes for a supervillain?"

Tiny cakes. Methos had absolutely not been able to convince him that they were called cupcakes and brownies.  He had also learned that Loki thought that cupcakes were bite-sized.  Evidently Asgardians, no matter how properly they normally behaved, were all incredibly big eaters, and they were competitive about it.  He had been informed quite indignantly that, no matter how thin he was, he had been known to out-eat even Thor on occasion, though he had never been able to even close to the record of someone called Volstagg. 

Methos was just about to tease him for thinking that anyone who did nice things for him was incredibly disturbed, when gunfire erupted outside. He ducked automatically, but once he remembered that bullets couldn't get through the shield, and also, that he was immortal, he went to join Loki at the window to get a better look at whoever was shooting at them.

The sight that met his eyes was one of the most ridiculous things he'd ever seen. The lone gunman in full combat gear intently unloading a machine gun onto Loki's shields would have unfortunately been a normal enough sight for him in the farce his life had become lately.  What was surprising about the scene more had to do with the fact that, though completely normal shell-casings were dropping to the ground all around the man, the actual bullets were turning into tulips as soon as they reached the outer shield, and were piling up rapidly in what was quickly turning into a small mountain of flowers.

Cursing, the gunman threw the machine gun to the side with disgust, and reached into a duffle bag on the ground behind him.

"Is that a bazooka?" Methos asked faintly, nervous despite himself. While he knew, rationally, that it most likely wasn't a match for Loki's defenses, a weapon like that might actually be able to kill him if it hit him in the head or neck.  Having something like that pointed at him did not make him a happy camper.

Loki, contrary to all common sense, looked exited beyond words.

"Yes, it most definitely _is_.  Oh, he really _is_ serious about killing me, isn't he?"

"Why do you sound so excited about that?!"

"I want to see what he'll do."

"Shoot a bazooka at us, obviously!"

"After that. I want to see how far he'll go."

"That's never a good reason for doing anything!"

"It's an excellent reason."

The man raised the bazooka to his shoulder, and took aim. Methos held his breath.  The gunman pulled the trigger…only to get buried under the veritable avalanche of daisies that exploded out of his bazooka rather than actual explosives.

Methos snorted.

"Okay, now you're just making fun of him with all that Flower Child imagery."

"What's a Flower Child?"

"….You know, peace activists in the Sixties? No?"  Loki still looked blank.  Methos sighed.  "Never mind, I'll explain it to you later.  So…are you going to go down there and ask him why he's trying to kill you, or are you content with just guessing?"

"I don't have to guess. He's trying to kill me because I'm me."

"Well, yes, but are you actually not curious at all about the specifics?"

"…Oh, fine, I'll go down there and ask him. Would you like to come with me?"

"Really?"

"Well, you haven't been outside in almost a week, now. Mortals can't die from a lack of sunlight, can they?" he said, eyeing Methos with what seemed to be genuine concern.

"Wha— _no_.  Not that I would say no to going outside if you're seriously offering," he said hastily, "but we're not plants, for god sake." 

Loki frowned.

"Do I need to take you for walks, then? I mean, not outside the shields, of course, but I could—"

He rolled his eyes.

"We're not pets either, Loki. I mean, I know you don't think highly of us, but—" A wicked glint appeared in Loki's eyes.  "Oh, okay.  I see how it is."

The god smirked.

"Let's go see what that charming gentleman wants, shall we?"

Charming. Modern Sherlock Holmes was evidently charming, and now all-too-real gun-toting madman was, too.  _You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means 1, _Methos thought _._

"Lead the way. But just so you know, if he finds a way to get through the shields, I'm hiding behind you."

"Naturally. I _am_ nearly indestructible, after all."

"Nearly?" Methos said hopefully.

"Yes. And don't get any ideas; unless you have a black hole or a Hulk up your sleeve, knowing that I am not completely invulnerable will not help you."

Methos sighed.

"I was afraid of that."

***

1This is, of course, a quote from _The Princess Bride_.  If you haven't seen it, one of the bad guys in the movie keeps saying, "Inconceivable!" whenever the hero overcomes another seemingly insurmountable obstacle in order to stay his trail.  One of his minions begins to question his word choice.  "Inconceivable.  You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means."

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt:
> 
> For whatever reason, the Avengers are away from Midgard (perhaps off helping the Guardians of the Galaxy idk) leaving New York undefended. Sadly, the newest big bad finds this out and sees this as the perfect opportunity to wipe out humanity. Chaos ensues with them unleashing a deadly army and arming a bomb, whatever else takes your fancy.
> 
> Well, Loki doesn't appreciate that at all - he's grown quite attached to that little coffee shop on the corner an the tailor three blocks over...not to mention the little patisserie near the park...
> 
> Cue Loki stepping in to save the day, taking out the army and dismantling the bomb (doing it the old-fashioned way at that - no magic to make it disappear). All without breaking a sweat.
> 
> He didn't expect people to appreciate it because no one in Asgard ever has, dismissing what he achieved as nothing more than tricks, but the people of Midgard LOVE him. Suddenly, he knows just what it feels like to be a hero...and he likes it.
> 
> Bonus: By the time the Avengers show up, Loki has the. Villain bundled up at his feet and is surrounded by his adoring fans. He tells them all quite casually that he is their newest Avenger.  
> Bonus 2: he tells an excited Thor that this is not for him but for Midgard, thank you very much and he still hates Thor. Whether he means it or not is up to you.


End file.
